Week 29: College Reading and Writing: Faizullah and Ahmed

Week 29: College Reading and Writing: Faizullah and Ahmed

Tarfia Faizullah and Sharbari Ahmed: Annotating, Summarizing, Analyzing, Imitating

to annotate: to make notes on something to help you understand it better

to summarize: to put something in your own words

to analyze: to consider a question on the text, providing supporting examples from the text

to imitate: to create an original piece of writing based on something you have read

We are doing the sixteenth poem and response in the book today, starting on page 56. 

Exercise: Read and annotate

1. Read the poem and response out loud and underline any words you need to look up

2. Write any questions you have in the margins or in your notebook

3. Put tricky parts into your own words in notes in the margins or in your notebook

Exercise: Questions for Comprehension of the poem

1.     To who or what is the speaker saying “yes” in the first line?

2.     What does Faizullah mean “the dawn eats its own faith”?  

3.     What is “my wing” in the last line?

Exercise: Summarize the poem

Write a paragraph summarizing the poem with quotations, in-text citation, and a Work Cited Page.

example too-short summary from a previous week, incorporating quotation and in-text citation:

Kyle Dargan’s poem “Natural Causes” tells the story of a boy who purchases a gun “from a farm in Virginia” (31) from a farmer who “keeps his gaze down as to remember nothing of the boy’s face” (31). The speaker of the poem insinuates that the farmer has sold guns to other boys like this one, when they say, “His customers rarely return older” (31).

Work Cited Page (for today’s poem)

Faizullah, Tarfia.“Aubade with Lemon and Sage.” Bullets Into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. Ed. Brian Clements et al. Beacon Press, 2017.

Exercise: Questions for Comprehension of the response

1. How does Ahmed begin her response? In what way does it put the response in conversation with the poem?
2. How does the word “children” in the first line of the second paragraph filter Ahmed’s tone or attitude about the attack?
3. According to Ahmed, what is “a gun” in a world “where so many feel powerless and small”?

Exercise: Summarize the response

Write a paragraph summarizing the response with quotations, in-text citation, and a Work Cited Page.

Exercise: Analysis

Question for analysis: In her response to Faizullah’s poem, Ahmed writes, “In Hollywood, an influential arbiter of public sentiment, violence with guns is couched as macho. A svelte young woman is rendered powerful and sexy” (58). How does Faizullah’s poem represent the gun and how does that representation vary from at least one other poem we’ve read for this class? In other words, what tone does gun violence take in this poem? Compare it to how gun violence is written in at least one other poem we’ve read.

Exercise: Imitation

Write a poem where an everyday act, such as visiting a local bakery or going to your job or calling your family, is written as a prayer or a song.

Homework:

1. Summary of Poem
2. Summary of Response
3. Analysis of Poem and Response
4. Imitation of Poem

About this class:

In this class, you are welcome to submit homework for a grade.  If it’s not strong enough to earn an A, I’ll give you some comments to help you revise it, and let you do it over again. You have as many chances as you want to complete and perfect the work in this class, and you are welcome to do more than one week’s worksheet for homework at a time; ask me for sheets you’ve missed.  Students who complete 15 weeks of graded assignments and a longer paper can qualify for college credit.  When you get close to completing 15 weeks, I’ll help you get started on your longer paper.